Stellar collision predicted for 2022
A pair of stars -- expected to collide in around five years -- should cause a blast powerful enough to be seen from Earth with the unaided eye.
Latest observations indicate the stars – which form a contact binary system known as KIC 9832227 -- have already merged their atmospheres and taken on a peanut like shape.

Deepest X-ray image ever reveals new secrets about black holes
An unparalleled image from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory is giving astronomers the best look yet at the growth of black holes over billions of years beginning soon after the Big Bang. The observations contain the highest concentration of supermassive black holes ever seen, equivalent to about 5,000 objects.

Star heading for as flyby of our solar system.
The European Space Agency’s Gaia mission has identified a star which will come close enough to our solar system to affect the orbits of comets in the Oort Cloud – the hypothetical sphere of comets and icy debris caught in the Sun’s gravity well surrounding the solar system.
The star -- known as Gliese 710 -- will pass within 26 billion kilometres or 72 light days of the Earth in 1.35 million years’ time.

Our galaxy’s black hole flinging Jupiter sized projectiles in to space
Astronomers have concluded that the supermassive black hole at the centre of our galaxy the Milky Way is ejecting giant planet sized balls of plasma every few thousand years. The plasma balls are the superheated remains of stars that have wandered too close to the monstrous black hole and were ripped apart in gravitational tidal disruption events.

China undertakes first launch for 2017
China has carried out its first launch for the year sending a Long March 3b rocket into space with a new experimental military telecommunications satellite. The TJS-2 satellite blasted into orbit from the Xichang satellite launch centre in Sichuan Province.

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